Roached
by LadyDivine91
Summary: Blaine is trying to help Kurt 'heal' from his past break ups over Valentine's Day in an unusual way. But things go off the rails when Kurt decides not to heal from his relationships with an ex, but his relationship with one of his best friends. Klaine. Kurt H. Blaine A.


"You know what?" Kurt says, lowering the lid to his laptop. "I've changed my mind. I don't want to do this."

"Why not?" Blaine asks, catching his fiancé's hand before the lid reaches the keyboard.

"Because there's no one I can think of who deserves to have a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach named after them and then fed to a meerkat!"

"Come on, Kurt! There has to be _someone_!"

Kurt glares at Blaine, confounded by his bizarre giddiness over the prospect. "Is there something you and I need to talk about?"

"What do you mean? I'm just trying to find a way to help you heal."

"Call me crazy, but for me, healing has nothing to do with _roaches_."

"This will be _fun_! I promise!"

"Blaine – it's _Valentine's Day_. Fun on Valentine's Day usually includes a romantic meal, a stroll through the park, a roll in the hay …"

"Let's do this first, and then we can go make love or something."

"Oh dear Lord …"

"First, let's go down the line of men who've done you wrong."

Kurt crosses his arms over his chest as Blaine pulls up a chair. "Well, if we're talking about men I've dated, the only one that's done me wrong is _you_."

"But I'm not an _ex_ …

"You _were_."

"I'm not now, so I don't qualify." Blaine opens the laptop again and rubs his hands together. "How about Adam? He threw you out of the Apples when we got back together."

"I don't see that as a _roach_-able offense."

"Elliott?"

"We never dated."

"Walter?"

"He was a decent guy. He's partially the reason why I came to my senses about you so I don't think you want to throw him to the meerkats."

"True …"

Blaine switches tabs on the screen, giving Kurt a ring-side seat to the action unfolding – a view into the meerkat enclosure at the Central Park Zoo, where the furry residents chow down on scurrying insects. As a roach drops into the habitat, the name of the unfortunate victim scrolls across the screen, along with the name of the person who nominated it. A new roach gets tossed in. The camera zooms in on it – a large oval of a creature, with long antennae, furry legs, and a strange, pale mark on its back that looks strikingly similar to a carousel horse. It races across the ground straight to an abandoned raspberry and perches upon it. A group of meerkats surround it, but instead of being concerned, it begins to clean itself with swipes of its antennae, hissing as if doing vocal warmups, preparing to sing for its encroaching audience. For some reason, the name 'Roach-el Berry' pops into Kurt's brain, and he snickers.

"Too bad I can't pick Rachel. Wouldn't that be ironic?"

A slow grin burns on Blaine's face. "Why can't you? You guys have definitely had the tumultuous relationship. If nothing else, she invalidated your run for student body president, she was part of the reason you didn't make it into NYADA the first go around, and … well …"

"Well …?"

"She kissed me, remember? Twice."

"To be fair, you kissed her the first time, too."

"I was drunk."

"You were both drunk, and it was still mutual. You and I had a _huge_ fight over it."

"Potato, po-tah-to …"

Kurt side-eyes Blaine. Blaine shudders

"What?"

"You know, the argument for naming a roach after you is getting stronger by the minute."

"You could name it after Santana," Blaine says, swiftly moving the subject away from himself. "Or Sue Sylvester."

"I wouldn't do such a horrible thing to an innocent little roach. Why are you so obsessed with my exes anyway? Don't you have anyone _you_ want to see roached?"

"Already taken care of," Blaine says with an abundance of glee. "Earlier on today, cockroach Eli and Jeremiah met their respective makers. I have it recorded if you want to see."

"A world of no." Kurt goes silent, peering at the webcam image as another wave of cockroaches are brought in for the sacrificial feast. The thinking going on behind Kurt's eyes begins to terrify Blaine. When Kurt opens his mouth to speak, Blaine is sure he's a goner. "Okay. Rachel Berry it is."

"Excellent!" Blaine puts his hands over the keyboard, itching to submit the name. Kurt clears his throat, and Blaine stops. With a nervous chuckle, he slides the computer closer to Kurt. "Oh, yeah. Here – you do the honors."

"First it was birds, now insects," Kurt says, beginning to type. "We _really_ need to talk about your fetish issues."

Before he can second-guess himself, he types the name _Rachel Berry _in the blank space under _Cockroach_, and his name under _submitted by_. He doesn't understand why he feels anxious. There's absolutely no way she'll ever know about this. It's a prank, harmless fun, and way for him to cleanse himself of the drama and tension that's hung between them during the tenure of their relationship. Like Blaine said (even if Kurt doesn't entirely agree with him) it's a way to heal. Just something he can reflect on and laugh at the next time he and Rachel get into an argument and she gets high-pitchy and red-faced. He'll just take that face and stick it on to the mental image of a bulbous roach with her name getting devoured by meerkats. Then whatever they're angry over will seem like no big thing.

Because most of the time, it isn't.

He clicks submit and holds his breath.

It takes about ten minutes, but his entry pops up at the bottom of the screen – _Rachel Berry: submitted by Kurt Hummel_. It shows up during a lull in the feeding. A technician manning the computer on the zoo's end sees it, nods, then goes to pick out Kurt's cockroach. And again, since there's a lull, the man at the zoo makes a meal of it, plucking out the plumpest roach and holding it out to the webcam.

"Say hello to the world, little Rachel Berry," the man says in a sing song voice. "Except now, we're going to call you _lunch_. Come along little Rachel Lunch. Berry Lunch. Rachel Berry Lunch …"

"That's in slightly poor taste," Kurt comments, but he can't help laughing. Blaine guffaws to the point of choking, tears streaming down his face. The tech tosses Rachel (or Roach-el, since that name's stuck in Kurt's mind and he can't get it out) into the enclosure, and even though there are already a horde of roaches inside, one particularly lithe meerkat with sleek brown fur pounces on her.

Kurt and Blaine leap into one another's arms, yelping at the brutal quickness of it.

The meerkat holds Roach-el in its paws, squeezing tight while the thing hisses like a tea kettle on maximum overdrive, struggling with all its might to get away. The meerkat, looking honestly annoyed by the roach's antics, bites off its head with an oddly amplified _crack_!

"Ah!" Kurt and Blaine groan.

The roach's body continues to squirm while the meerkat, unfazed, leisurely enjoys its snack.

Kurt's stomach makes a displeased noise.

"Okay, I think I'm going to be sick."

"Same," Blaine agrees with a hard swallow. "But don't you feel better?"

Kurt shakes his head at his insane fiancé, but he finds himself laughing again. "Yeah. Call me crazy, but I do feel a little better."

"Good," Blaine says, kissing Kurt on the forehead. "That's all I wanted."

"Yeah. Right."

_Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzzz._

"Ugh!" Kurt lowers the top to his computer. "I can't listen to anymore bug crunching noises." The laptop lip closes with a click, but the buzzing noise continues.

_Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzzz._

"That's not the computer, hon. That's your phone. Over on the sofa."

"Oh." Kurt picks his cell up off the futon across the room and looks at the screen. His eyebrows snap together in the middle, and he gasps. "It's _Rachel_!"

Kurt and Blaine share a look, but Blaine immediately waves Kurt's concern away. "Don't worry about it. That's just … a weird coincidence. You know what they say – speak of the devil? I mean, why the heck would she …?"

"She wouldn't! She doesn't like roaches! Or zoos! Besides, it's noon on _Valentine's Day_! Do you mean to tell me that instead of going out on a romantic lunch date with Finn, she's sitting at their apartment watching a _webcam_?"

Blaine shrugs, but when he talks, his voice shakes. "_We_ are."

The call goes to voicemail. Kurt holds his breath.

_Please don't call again_, he prays to himself. _Please just send a picture of whatever corny thing you and my brother are doing right now that has absolutely nothing to do with me naming a hissing cockroach after you and then watching that roach being fed to …_

_Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzzz._

The name Rachel Berry pops up on his screen, along with a picture of her beaming face, and Kurt sighs.

"You know," he says, holding the phone out to Blaine, "this was _your_ stupid idea. _You_ should be the one to talk to her."

"It's your phone," Blaine says, climbing onto the futon and covering himself with pillows in an attempt to hide. Kurt rolls his eyes. When his fiancé went insane, he'll never know, but this is the last time he lets Blaine pick what they do for Valentine's Day.

Kurt takes a moment to compose himself, plans what he's going to say, then answers the phone. "Hello?"

She doesn't let him get farther than that.

"Kurt Hummel!" Rachel's voice booms from Kurt's phone. "Did you just name a roach after me and then have me eaten by a _rat_?"

"Uh …" Kurt feels his body go cold from the top of his head to his feet. "Yes, I did," he says as he races to the kitchen, speaking at Mach 10 as he goes, "_but it was only a joke, I never thought you'd see it, I love you very much, it was all Blaine's idea, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!_"

"Wha-?" He hears her squeak before he hangs up the call and tosses his phone into the freezer before she can call back.


End file.
